If you have asked me of the origination of unease, then I shall explain it to you in accordance with my understanding: Whatever various forms of unease there are in the world, They originate founded in encumbering accumulation. (Pārāyanavagga)

Exalted in mind, just open and clearly aware, the recluse trained in the ways of the sages:One who is such, calmed and ever mindful, He has no sorrows! -- Udana IV, 7

jcsuperstar wrote:why is it that modern teachers feel the need to have quotes by non-buddhists and mystics from other religions in their books as some sort of "proof" that what the Buddha said is right?

seems silly, why would i care?

After listening to a talk where the presenter apparently put freud, jung, and buddhism in a blender. Id say at about the same time Stephen Batchelor did. I cant tell whether he is a psychologist disguised as a buddhist or the other way round.

Id much rather have my buddhism polluted with rumi than freud tho.

"When you meditate, don't send your mind outside. Don't fasten onto any knowledge at all. Whatever knowledge you've gained from books or teachers, don't bring it in to complicate things. Cut away all preoccupations, and then as you meditate let all your knowledge come from what's going on in the mind. When the mind is quiet, you'll know it for yourself. But you have to keep meditating a lot. When the time comes for things to develop, they'll develop on their own. Whatever you know, have it come from your own mind.http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai ... eleft.html

Annapurna wrote:..... can people be Buddhists and psychologists at the same time....?

Peter?

Metta,

Anna

Maybe so, but if you are presenting a dharma talk you need to decide where you are speaking from before you start. In addition freuds simple vision is not in great repute with the rest of the so-called science these days and imo has no place in a dharma talk. I have only heard the one talk by SB and maybe he was having an off day or something, but rather than worry about Rumi being quoted, its alot more serious imo when someone like batchelor presents himself as a teacher and then confuses the dharma with questionable psychological theories.

"When you meditate, don't send your mind outside. Don't fasten onto any knowledge at all. Whatever knowledge you've gained from books or teachers, don't bring it in to complicate things. Cut away all preoccupations, and then as you meditate let all your knowledge come from what's going on in the mind. When the mind is quiet, you'll know it for yourself. But you have to keep meditating a lot. When the time comes for things to develop, they'll develop on their own. Whatever you know, have it come from your own mind.http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai ... eleft.html

The heart of the path is SO simple. No need for long explanations. Give up clinging to love and hate, just rest with things as they are. That is all I do in my own practice. Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. When you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing. Of course, there are dozens of meditation techniques to develop samadhi and many kinds of vipassana. But it all comes back to this - just let it all be. Step over here where it is cool, out of the battle. - Ajahn Chah

Annapurna wrote:..... can people be Buddhists and psychologists at the same time....?

What exactly speaks against it? As far as I understand it, certain professions don't go well with Buddhism, such as executioner, arms dealer, drug dealer, pimp, slaughterer, and such, but I don't think that psychologists fall into that category.

jcsuperstar wrote:why is it that modern teachers feel the need to have quotes by non-buddhists and mystics from other religions in their books as some sort of "proof" that what the Buddha said is right? seems silly, why would i care?

- because they might want to engage a secular audience.- because they might feel that third-party corroboration is useful.- because they might want to bring across a point in a specific context.- because they might feel a particular phrasing was lucid and clear.- because they have personal associations with the quoted teachings.

There are plenty of good reasons. It also helps to remember that Buddhism has no patent on truth. Truth has been expressed in the context of many different teachings. Some of these teachings are in agreement with Buddhism in important aspects. But perhaps the most important reason is that people who are intimately familiar with Buddhism form a minority on this planet and that one cannot assume this familiarity when speaking to a global audience.

The Buddha here tells the story of a king who had six blind men gathered together to examine an elephant."When the blind men had each felt a part of the elephant, the king went to each of them and said to each: 'Well, blind man, have you seen the elephant? Tell me, what sort of thing is an elephant?".The six blind men assert the elephant is either like a pot (the blind man who felt the elephants' head), wicket basket (ear), ploughshare (tusk), plough (trunk), granary (body), pillar (foot), mortar (back), pestle (tail) or brush (tip of the tail).The men cannot agree with one another and come to blows over the question of what an elephant really is like, and this delights the king. The Buddha ends the story of the king and compares the six blind men to preachers and scholars who are blind and ignorant and hold to their own views: "Just so are these preachers and scholars holding various views blind and unseeing.... In their ignorance they are by nature quarrelsome, wrangling, and disputatious, each maintaining reality is thus and thus." The Buddha then speaks the following verse:O how they cling and wrangle, some who claimFor preacher and monk the honored name!For, quarreling, each to his view they cling.Such folk see only one side of a thing.............

Rumi, the 13th Century Persian poet and teacher of Sufism, included it in his Masnavi. In his retelling, "The Elephant in the Dark", some Hindus bring an elephant to be exhibited in a dark room. A number of men feel the elephant in the dark and, depending upon where they touch it, they believe the elephant to be like a water spout (trunk), a fan (ear), a pillar (leg) and a throne (back).

Rumi uses this story as an example of the limits of individual perception:The sensual eye is just like the palm of the hand. The palm has not the means of covering the whole of the beast.

Rumi doesn't present a resolution to the conflict in his version, but states:The eye of the Sea is one thing and the foam another. Let the foam go, and gaze with the eye of the Sea. Day and night foam-flecks are flung from the sea: of amazing! You behold the foam but not the Sea. We are like boats dashing together; our eyes are darkened, yet we are in clear water.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

with mettaChris

---The trouble is that you think you have time------Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe------It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---

all babies are born with that; they instinctively love their caretakers. So if we can find that again, then our relationships will take care of themselves.

Hi, all,

Wonderful. That is actually a thought that has been on my mind lately a lot.

I'll explain why:

I am watching BB, Big brother, the German version. Please don't jump top negative conclusions, anybody, but it's far more interesting than studying gorillas in the mountains, you see.

And my personal "hobby" is this:

I compare their behaviour to the Dhamma.

It is my theory, that those whose behaviour is the "noblest", stay in the longest and almost always win in the end.

This is fascinating for me to watch.

Right now, we are having the most successful episode since several years, due to one man: Klaus.

He is the noblest in character, (imo) selfless, team player, sacrifices own comfort so the others can have more, disciplined, absolutely honest, compassionete, protects the weak, is totally fearless, respects his mother, but:

He criticizes others. A pretty petite girl was mobbed by the other chicks, and so he took her under his wings and told the others straight in the face:

Of course they hate him after such announcements and plot against him, and badmouth him, and insult him, but he stays strong. He is like a Rhino that can wander alone.

So, at times he really shames and annoys them, and on the other hand you could say he is doing this:

76. Should one find a man who points out faults and who reproves, let him follow such a wise and sagacious person as one would a guide to hidden treasure. It is always better, and never worse, to cultivate such an association.

77. Let him admonish, instruct and shield one from wrong; he, indeed, is dear to the good and detestable to the evil.

Interesting is, that the people in the house vote him onto the exit list each time, while the audience always votes him "in".

It is a thought I am investigating:

if "people" out there know, what is right.

If there is an "innate goodness and nobility in all of us, " and I tend to say yes.

Actually, I am convinced of this.

We're all good, somewhere, inside.

And bad as well. But we "know" what is right, deep down inside. Only problem: Most of us are only good to loved ones, like Hitler to his dog Blondie...